A Story of a Lone Survivor
by Fuzzymokna
Summary: When the world is launched into chaos, Amber a small copper haired 18 year old girl, finds herself alone. Fighting off a plague of man eating corpses dubbed the biters. Could the companionship of a friend and a little girl named Clementine be her salvation. Who knows what might revive her stone heart. ((This is a Walking dead branch off of the first games ending))
1. Chapter 1

A story of a lone survivor

Dear Diary, April?

It'd been about eight months since everything went to hell and back. Well, at least I think so when everything goes to shit you tend to lose track of time. At least one winter had passed, thankfully not a bad one but just enough to slow the chompers down. While they were all frozen in the snow and mud slush I managed to clean up and secure a nice little house in a small town. If I remember right it was a town called Wellington. Nice quiet, not a lot of chompers, lots of abandoned houses, almost all of them were picked clean during the first few weeks. Some of the less appealing houses were left stocked with canned food stuffs like; peaches, pears, ravioli, spaghetti-o's, green beans, carrots, and peas. The whole nine yards, it's heaven, well at least as close as you can be these days.

Since I started living here, I've started secure more and more stores and mom 'n pop shops. I've found tons of clothes and different useful weapons. I've never been fond of guns; I was never a good shot to begin with, even before people started to get chomped by corpses. My dad taught me that guns tend to be more dangerous than chompers. Not too long after this all began he went a little stir crazy to say the least, I think it was mostly being confined to a small cramped space for so long. He popped off a chomper with his pistol and brought about twenty more down right on top of them. He was ripped to pieces in mere seconds. We lost my mom and brother in the very beginning; they panicked and were overrun by a few of our neighbors, or former neighbors after they started trying to eat a neighborhood cat.

I've been alone ever since, playing it safe. Only going out during the day and staying locked up at night. All I've needed so far has been my trusted machete. Just long enough to take down a biter without getting grabbed or bitten, but light enough to get it out in a hurry. A few of the living tend to stroll into town every now and then, looking for supplies and gas. Had a few offers to join a group of survivors but I turned down every offer. The way I see it, safety in numbers isn't always safe, more people to keep track of, more mouths to feed, and most importantly differences in opinions.

Besides, it's easier to move through a hoard of biters when you don't have a caravan of people behind you. Sure I do get lonely sometimes but I always have been, even before hell broke loose. I never really had many friends, and those who were left with their families trying to escape to safety. Ah well, with any luck they made it to safety and are waiting for me somewhere. Well anyhow, not too long ago I started to block off the area around my little haven with abandoned cars and tall vehicles, it makes it harder for biters to get through.

I found a nice little enclosed trailer too; I started to keep any of my extra supplies in it, just in case I have to bug out in a flash. As far as I know, I have enough food and water to last me another month. Hopefully I can round up from some more food from neighboring towns. It's just about dusk now I better bar down and get some shut-eye…

Chapter 1: Decisions…Decisions…

It'd been about two months since Amber wrote that diary. It seemed like suddenly every biter in the entire state had traveled to the small town of Wellington. If those cars hadn't been moved when they were she would have been overrun. The small, blue eyed, copper haired eighteen year old girl had gone through all of her canned goods. She'd run out of her food about a few days ago. If the hoard didn't clear out soon she would be as good as dead. If only she could make it to the onyx trailer, there was extra food there, water too. With all the groans and grunts outside Amber wasn't even going to risk looking outside into possible danger. It was too late in the evening anyway, going outside would be a death wish.

She waited until the break of dawn to glance out the boarded up windows. Through the crisp dull morning light she saw was appeared to be an empty street. The hoard had passed, only a few stragglers remained beyond the abandoned ring of cars. Nothing she couldn't handle after something to eat. "If I stay low I can make it to the trailer without being seen by the biters…." She mumbled to herself, formulating a plan. She crawled through the dog door and stayed as low as she could to the ground. Her shaking fingers pulled the padlock key out from her pocket and unlocked the padlock and cracked the door open, just enough to slip inside.

Once inside Amber let out a soft sigh of relief and locked the door behind her, as silently as she possibly could. The chilly bite of the morning air made her count her blessings that she stocked up the blankets and warm clothes. She gorged herself on a can of mixed fruit, savoring every last little bite. Taking stock of what she had saved, at least twenty cans of food and three jugs of water. "That won't last long….maybe it's time to pull up stakes and move on." she said softly. Wellington had just about been picked clean by herself and others. One last sweep of the town would clean it out for sure.

After finishing her food she pulled on a sweater that was a size too big for her, beggars can't be choosers, at least that's what her mom use to say. It was an ugly sweater, the kind that would win a Christmas sweater contest. Shit brown with a bright pink florescent flamingo on the front, sequence for eyes and its beak. If she had a choice it would be the last thing she would wear. Amber was never one for fashion but she knew enough not to wear clothes like this when she had the option.

After getting herself ready, the machete clutched in her hand and ready to strike at anything that seems threatening. She knocked softly on the door, just loud enough that any chomper nearby could hear, but not so loud that it would draw more attention to her. Moments passed, it almost seemed like an eternity. Everything was silent, no crunch of grass, no banging on the door, no groans at all. It was almost a creepy quiet. Slowly she unlocked the door being careful not to make a lot of noise. Pulling the silver handle up slowly, the latch groaned quietly before giving way. Staying still for a moment just to be safe, everything was still silent. Amber slowly pushed open the door only to stare right into the obsidian gullet of a biter. It was a woman but that was all that was obvious. She'd probably been dead for quite a long time.

Without a second thought Amber thrust her machete up straight through the animated corpse's mouth. The sudden impact caused the corpses weight to fall all at once, bringing Amber down on top of it. She felt a sharp pain on her wrist, it felt like teeth. Fear and panic started coursing through her veins like white hot fire. Keeping her panic locked inside she wrenched the machete free and looked at her wrist. "Never thought I would be grateful to a god awful sweater…" she sighed in relief. The corpse's teeth were stopped by the thick brown wool of the sweater.

Coming back to the unfortunate reality, one of the biters had seen the whole thing go down and had begun to crawl underneath a car. Thinking quickly she jumped to her feet, grabbed the bloody machete from the lifeless corpse and buried it almost up to the hilt into the corpses head while it was still working its way out from under the car. Amber quickly moved back to the boarded up house and crawled through the doggie door and slid the lock bolt into place. "Okay one more pass through town…all of the houses and stores, load the truck up with as much gas as it will carry. Then I have to get all these boards down. Hopefully I can find a box of nails at a shop somewhere…Let's see what else I would need…" She mumbled to herself, passing back and forth in the houses living room, kicking up dust from the old carpet.

Picking up a semi large backpack and emptying the contents of it onto the floor, checking for anything she might need on her hunt. A small journal and a pen, a bottle of water, an ace bandage, a mystery book, a family photo spotted with blood, a rag stained with dried blood, rope, a small hand gun and a box of ammo, an extra knife and a guide to living off the land laid in a pile. "I could leave my diary, the bottle of water, the bandage, both my books and my picture behind. I'll put them in the trailer so I don't forget them." Amber mumbled and shoved everything back into the bag before peering out the window, surveying her surroundings. Nothing was out of the ordinary, a few biters but nothing to worry about.

Amber removed the bolt and slowly pushed the small door open and looked out, no corpse was in sight. She crawled through the door with her machete in hand, just in case, and then pulled the back pack through the door after her. Pulling the straps onto her shoulders and slowly inched her way to the trailer, stashing what she didn't need inside. Locking the trailer back up and stashing the key back in her pocket before walking toward the silver truck attached to the trailer. Checking the truck to make sure nothing had been tampered with. A splotch of blood was smeared on the passenger side window, most likely from a biter walking into it. Everything seemed okay and the keys were still tucked safely inside her pocket. "Looks like everything is good" Amber said.

Jumping over the hood of a dusty red Honda, landing softly on the other side of the wall of cars. A nearby corpse who'd been leaning against the tire of the truck, tucked just out of sight that it wouldn't have been seen from the house or the other side of the truck. Quickly recovering from the initial surprise, she buried the blade into its head. Its limbs twitched and sputtered to a stop. Pulling the blade free and moved onto the next walking corpse. Taking each one of them down, one by one until the road was clear of any visible biters. Moving from one house to the next, checking every single cabinet and closet. Amber found more cans of food, a box of matches, a sweater much less gaudy then the one she was wearing, thankfully, and a pair of tennis shoes a size too big but still wearable.

Going through a few more houses finding nails, a mess kit and a fire tin. All of the houses were filled with nothing but pointless goods. Things that people valued before the days of hell on earth. A sense of nostalgia passed through her mind, she used to be like this too. Treasuring pointless items; accessories, clothes, stuffed animals, and phones. "Who would have guessed a girl like me ended up being a survivalist. Guess I really could live without my laptop after all" she snickered to herself. Maybe there was a point to all that nagging after all. Amber purposefully skipped a few houses because of the gory scenes that were almost show cased inside the houses. Blood speckled on the windows. Clumps of brain matter scattered and matted into the carpet stained red with blood. Four figures sat on the couch, three of them with a bullet hole in their temples and the fourth with his head blasted open and a five millimeter hand gun lying limply in his hand.

It was almost the same scene in some of the other houses. People who couldn't handle what the world was coming to, so they chose not to deal with it. After all that she's seen she couldn't blame them. The world was a much crueler place than it was before, so much crueler. On her way back to the house a few biters had revealed themselves and came at her. At one of the houses there was a pretty sharp axe stashed inside the garage. Using that axe she split open their heads with one swing. Somehow the bodies falling limp and even more lifeless to the ground were entertaining. It was almost like a video game become reality.

Finally making it back to the ring of cars and putting her back pack into the truck's passenger seat. "Okay time to start breaking this place down." she sighed. It was almost sad; she'd lived inside the abandoned house for about three months now. Without a decent supply of food left there wasn't any reason to stay. There wasn't any emotional ties keeping her there anyway. Grabbing a long thick tube from the bed of the truck and grabbing the gas cans from the back she began to drain the remaining gas from the cars that she'd been using for protection for so long. She filled all eight jugs full of gas, enough to get her as far as she needed. It took her a few minutes to heft all eight gas jugs into the back of the truck and secure them in place. "Okay now to get everything out of the house" she said and started towards the house, crawling back inside, through the dog door.

It didn't take more than ten minutes to round up all of her things and to begin to pry the boards off the windows and the front door. She shoved all of her belongings into the passenger seat of the truck and went back into the house to grab the boards and put them inside the trailer, using them to keep all of her supplies from sliding around in the trailer. "Thanks for everything Wellington…you've been pretty good to me" she spoke in a low tone, sad to leave the place she'd called home for so long. "Well I guess now's as good as time as any…" she mumbled and crawled into the truck cab and started it. A small victory that the truck even started after sitting for so long. Thankfully the truck she was using was fairly new so it wasn't very loud when it ran. Not to mention it got fairly good gas mileage. It was ironic that mileage was still important with cars even these days.

Carefully maneuvering the truck and trailer out of the spot it was parked in she pulled out onto the now clear road. Taking one last look at the house through her mirror. As she gained speed she looked out at all of the houses and stores that she'd come to know so well. Empty husks of their former selves. "I wonder what this place looked like before all of this." she pondered out loud. Letting her mind wander as she drove through what seemed like endless farm land. Countless cookie-cutter farm houses remained untouched by the plague and time itself. "It's times like this when I really miss my stereo and my IPod…" she sighed, turning on and turning off the radio. The same message had been playing on all the stations for as long as she could remember. "The U.S. Military has set up a safe zone in…Akron" she quoted the message exactly. "Akron was overrun months ago." she groaned. If only there was a safe zone to flee to.

It seemed as if no place was safe unless you made it safe. Amber drove towards a small string of pale gray smoke. It could mean a town, meaning more supplies and a possible place to bunker down in. As she got closer, smaller streams of smoke became visible, it was a small camp. Three, four tents nothing too big but there was no way of knowing how well armed these people were. For all Amber knew they could be packing some serious fire power. That wasn't a risk she was willing to take. "Maybe I should scope them out for a few days, make sure what they're capable of, wouldn't be good if I got robbed of everything I have…" she sighed and pulled the truck and trailer into a patch of woods before climbing out of the cab and locking the truck up.

There was an abundance of fallen limbs from the pine trees. "Use these suckers to cover the truck, got to keep it hidden." she thought out loud. If the truck had been a darker color she wouldn't have worried about it. Thanks to a rainstorm that passed the truck was clean and shiny. Pulling all of the gas cans out of the back of the truck and moved them into the trailer. Things were desperate enough that losing gas meant a hell of a long walk just to find some more. That wasn't something that she felt like doing right now. Locking the trailer door with the key and then securing it with the padlock. As she was moving the limbs onto the truck, some biters must have heard the noise and ventured towards the source to investigate. The ground was littered with twigs and crisp branches left over from fall. There were three biters as far as the grunts and the snapping of brittle ground cover could tell. Amber turned around and cut their heads clean open. One after another they all fell to the ground. "Okay I have a few bottles of water some canned fruit the gun and ammo in case things get ugly…." she spoke, taking inventory of all that she was bringing with her. Not much but enough to live off of for a few days. Looking at the freshly dead corpses, "Well well well looks like it's my lucky day." she said in surprise. One of the corpses had a pair of binoculars strapped to its hip.

Coated in blood mind you but still useful, well once the blood was wiped off. "Thank you mister biter, you might just be my favorite out of all of you freaks of nature." she spoke to the corpse as if it was going to start talking back. Not even bothering with digging out her own rag she wiped the binoculars clean with the corpses clothes. With new gear in tow Amber started towards the camp on foot, clearing any biters along the way. She stopped behind a row of tree's not more than twenty feet from the camp. Things looked normal enough, people walking around, and a few guns visible. Nothing too fancy, mostly hand guns shoved in battered jean pockets. She sat there for a while, just watching.

There were two older men probably late fifties early sixties, three men in their late thirties early forties, two women and three kids. Maybe more further inside the camp. They seemed fairly harmless, people just trying to survive. "Better keep watch for a few more days just to be safe." She was so focused on keeping an eye on the camp she didn't notice that she wasn't the only one watching.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The unfortunate fate we all share.

It'd been quiet and still for about three hours now. Nothing much had changed inside the camp, a few people moving around. Nothing out of the ordinary. They appeared to be to handling oncoming biters okay, using knives only no matter how many appeared. There was a small crunch behind her, she turned around before a sharp blunt object collided with her forehead. The force was enough to knock her out but not enough to kill her. A tall man had been watching her, waiting for the perfect time to strike.

"What do we have here, a little kitten gone astray?" He spoke in a low gravely tone.

Amber was out cold, sprawled out on the ground. The man, just over six feet and well built, black hair, bright green eyes. "Looks like I've found myself a new pet~" he purred in an almost sadistic tone. Gazing at her with lustful eyes, "Pretty cute for a little spy" he spoke softly. Kneeling down and picking her up, laying her over his shoulder and standing up. Walking back to the camp Amber in tow.

"Oy Brandon found a new toy did you?" one of the men said and stood up, walking around Brandon examining his fresh catch.

"No I found her watching our camp, want to be careful you know, but if she ends up in chains then who am I to argue?" he finished with a chuckle.

"Make sure to save some of her for the rest of us, not often we get a fine piece of tail like that in camp." the man said and gave a thumbs up.

"We'll see about that" Brandon finished the conversation and brought Amber to his tent, tying her to the thick metal pole. Then he sat in front of her and waited for her to come back to consciousness. It didn't take long for that to happen, about five minutes he guessed.

"Ugh….what the hell…." Amber groaned still groggy and very disoriented.

"The sleeping beauty wakes, what were you doing watching us, cupcake?" Brandon asked, tilting her head up with his knife.

"None of your business ass-hat" she spat and jarred her head away, the knife making a small cut on her chin.

"Looks like the kitten's got claws, I'll ask you one more time before I get angry. What were you doing watching our camp?" He growled, pressing the knife against her chin.

"Passing through, didn't know if I would be okay crossing or not. I was watching to make sure I wouldn't be attacked." Amber finally blurted out. What was the point in lying to someone who had a knife to your face?

"Well I think I'll keep you chained up until I decide if you're a threat or not." Brandon sneered, and then a sly smirk crossed his thin pale chapped lips.

"You really think I'm a threat? Do I look threatening to you?" she asked, seriously questioning this guy's motives. Just what was his plan, torture, or rape, maybe something a lot worse?

"I've seen a lot of people weaker then you fight like hell to get whatever they want. What are you after, guns, food, water?"

"Try none of the above, I don't need your guns or supplies, I just scavenge what I can from an area then move on to the next. Simple as that." Amber explained and pulled on the ropes binding her wrists. "What's this for? Was knocking me out cold not enough?" She asked, starting to get pissed off. This wasn't going well, not at all.

"Precautions, you seem like the die-hard survival type, we could use people like you in our group. You seem to know how to get supplies no matter what."

"Thanks but no thanks; I don't work well with other people. Too many asses to watch and to feed. Untie me and I'll be on my way." She finished and looked up into his bright blue eyes. Something about him was strange. His actions and his words were completely opposite, that fact alone made her uneasy.

"I'll untie you on one condition, you stick around in camp for a day or two see if you change your mind." Brandon said and started to saw away the ropes with his knife. "You've got to be tired if you're traveling on foot."

"Thanks, I'll stay for a day nothing more, after that let me be on my way."

"Fair enough, think about it" He said and helped her to her feet. "My name is Brandon, I'm the sort of unofficial leader of this group."

"Amber, can I have my stuff back? I don't feel safe without my machete." She said and held out her hand, waiting to be handed her stuff.

"Just keep it in the sheath; folks around here don't need to be thinking you're going to hurt someone." Brandon spoke, pointing to the leather sheath hanging from her belt.

"I'll be good unless they give me a good reason to knock all of their teeth out." Amber finished, smirking slightly, amused by her joke.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that" He said and handed her the back pack and machete.

The two of them walked out together, Amber observing her surroundings. A few tents and a fire pit in the center. A few squirrels and other woodland critters strung up on a line between two trees. The fish were hung below it. Over the shallow flames of the fire pit sat a large pot of water being boiled. On the other side of the fire between two other trees, two women and three children were hanging up freshly cleaned clothes on a line to dry.

"Hey Brandon can you help me clean this buck?" called a thin, greasy black haired man, the way he was built it was obvious he wouldn't be able to clean a buck or doe by himself.

Brandon just smiled at Amber then headed over towards the smaller man. Amber sighed and looked around, finally noticing all of the other people staring at her. The stares made her feel uneasy; they weren't the stares of curious on lookers. The stares were that of which she had never experienced before. She'd seen other girls receive such stares, but they wore three times less clothes then she would ever dare to wear.

"You must be Brandon's new pet…" A voice came from behind her. Spinning on her heel Amber meet the gaze of a young girl around the same age as her. She was a small girl, thin from lack of food, a little shorter than herself. Short strawberry blond hair that framed her face and curled around her ears and cheeks and worn blue eyes.

"What do you mean by pet?" Amber asked trying to brush off the other people stares.

"I mean you're his pet, he's not going to let you leave. Girls are hard to come by these days and he'll take any decent tail he can find." She explained.

"I'm leaving tomorrow, no ifs and or buts about it." Amber huffed. Nothing was going to keep her here, connections only caused more problems.

"I'm Melody I was Brandon's last pet, until I threw a fit and almost hacked off his junk" She spoke and held out her hand. "It would be nice if you did stick around for a while, then I would at least have someone decent to talk too."

"Amber…no offence but I don't really get attached to people. Who knows how long before either one of us is killed. But thanks for the advice about Brandon; he seems like kind of a huge dick."

"You got a point there but it's always good to have someone to cover your ass so those things don't sneak up on you."

"It's not the corpses I'm worried about; it's the living that are unpredictable. This world the way it is makes people do whatever they possibly can do to survive, and it gives the sicko's a chance to let loose." Amber sighed and crossed her arms, leaning to her left.

"Yeah, at least the dead are predictable, they respond to noise, smell and sight. Acting on the basic primal instinct, eat and reproduce. They only die once the brain has been smashed." Melody chirped almost proud of all of her observations.

"Don't forget that their brute strength is almost doubled because they don't get tired and they seem to know enough to grab rocks and other stuff to break glass to get at food. Oh and some will sit there seeming like their dead until something is within reach" Amber spouted, sharing her own findings.

"Sounds like you two are doing a research paper on the walking corpses." Brandon said as he walked up, three cans of peached clutched in his deer blood stained hands. "Seems like you made a new friend Amber"

"Thanks I was starving" Melody mumbled and grabbed both cans and handed Amber one. "And for your information, anything we can learn about these freaks the better."

"Hey, I'm just messing around. So how about we all venture back to my tent for a nice cup of coffee?" Brandon gestured.

"Coffee, you mean that stuff still exists, god it's been ages since I had one" Amber perked up, back in her days as a part time college student coffee was a god send.

"Not the knock off stuff either, good old Maxwell house, the good kind. He bragged and started to lead the two girls to his tent on the far side of camp. Brandon poured the three of them coffee in dingy, chipped coffee cups. Serving the piping hot liquid to them. Melody was the first to take a large gulp of the black rich coffee. The warm coffee was a welcome taste, she hadn't had anything with flavor since everything began, juice and coffee weren't exactly first on the survival list.

"So Melody how long have you been with this camp?" Amber asked casually. A little curious as to how much time she's spent among this group of survivors.

"ummm a few weeks I think. Don't really know for sure, never really kept track of time" She replied and smiled after a sip of coffee.

"I remember when we found you, surrounded by a pack of biters with only an iron pipe to keep them just out of arms reach. Then she bashes two of them into a wall at once, then kicks the nearest one to the ground and buries the pipe right into the thing's eye socket." Brandon regaled the tale.

The story alone was enough to make Amber queasy, even in times like this where graphic scenes were occurring to every survivor out there. Swallowing the lump in her throat she took another sip of her coffee.

"It wasn't that great of a scene. I mean I've seen you take down a whole group of them with just a hand knife." Melody continued and looked over at Amber, noticing how pale she looked. "Maybe a change in subject is in order…So where are you heading next Amber?" She finished with a quick elbow jab to Brandon's side.

Amber cleared her throat and sighed, lightly squeezing the cup. "Well I don't really know, usually what I do is find a rural town that doesn't have too many biters and hunker down for a little while. Scavenge any and all food and supplies that was left behind. Set up a perimeter around a house with broken down cars or other junk that's lying around. Board up everything except one entry point and an emergency escape route. Secure some different places around the town just in case I get pinned down somewhere." She rambled, regaling her methods and watching her own mouth move in the reflection in the brown liquid.

"That's quite the method, seems like you've perfected your survival method. Maybe we could do that in a town." Brandon spoke, a little wide eyed with surprise as to how prepared she really was.

"Perfected no, I haven't worked people into the method, too many different possibilities, and too many uncertainties. People are unpredictable, the dead aren't. You try to secure a town it's bound to fail." Amber spoke with absolute certainty, shooting a glare at Brandon.

"How do you know that for sure? What if it does work, we could all be safe" Melody interjected.

"Do you know for certain that if your forces were spread out that everyone would know what to do? That if a biter got into a bunkered house that everything wouldn't go to shit? One biter that's all it takes to turn an entire family into a family of biters ready to attack the closest living thing. It only takes one weakness in the defense to screw things up big time. Trust me it won't work."

"….Oh my god, that happened to you didn't it Amber" Melody spoke softly taken aback by the realization.

"Yeah, a group took me in a few months back. They were in a really small town almost nothing to it but a few shops and a group of houses. The leader used some cars to block off sections from the biters. There was a house that was in the process of being boarded up to be lived in. It was the family's first night in a house big enough to fit them comfortably. They forgot to board up the back door and one got in while they were sleeping. It got all of them. The next day when everyone woke up, half of the group had been killed and one family was burned alive when the house beside it caught fire. The whole thing was awful and terrifying…." She finished, a little choked up. She hadn't been with a group since that had happened.

Melody and Brandon were at a loss for words, it was Melody who wrapped Amber in a gentle consoling embrace. The silence could be cut with a knife.


End file.
